by Lori Bowen
The “37th Annual Valdosta National” exhibition – hosted at the Dedo Maranville Fine Arts Gallery – features a wide range of media from textile to videography and is host to the pieces of 25 artists in total. The juried show consists of selections picked from 195 submissions by juror Michael McFalls and ran from January 16th to February 7th, 2025.
Continue reading The 37th Annual Valdosta Nationalby Hayley Acevedo
In the Dedo Maranville Fine Arts Gallery, Chico Sierra’s exhibition The Good Sun brings together expressionism, cultural symbolism, and personal experience. As a Mexican-American artist, Sierra draws inspiration from his Indigenous heritage, combining it with expressionist techniques to captivate and immerse viewers. His collection of paintings feels alive and vibrant, encouraging deeper engagement with themes of identity, culture, and spirituality.
Continue reading Chico Sierra: The Good Sunby Shelby Hammack
In the second week of February of 2025, Valdosta State University’s Dedo Maranville Fine Art Gallery hosted Chico Sierra’s The Good Sun exhibition. In the beginning of the week, the visiting artist, originally from El Paso, Texas, performed live mural painting in the gallery, open for art and design students to view and converse with the artist. From start to finish, Sierra completed his 65” x 15’ painting, Slow Collisions, acrylic on canvas, prior to the opening of the exhibition. On opposing sides of the canvas, two bodiless heads, both appearing to be female, float in the vibrant pattern stained void. The two forces, facing each other, appear to collide in the near center of the canvas. In watching the development of the mural, Sierra moved about the canvas without evident rhyme or reason, which he claims is a regular practice in his artistic process.1 While being the largest in dimension, Slow Collisions is only one of many in “The Good Sun” Exhibition; though this mural captures his central area of work, the larger majority of the exhibition illuminates a central theme among his work.
Continue reading Chico Sierra: The Good Sunby Sammye C. Hamilton
The Dedo Maranville Gallery has once again successfully hosted an artist that offers viewers new insight into art that is both visually appealing and inspires questions on cultural differences between viewer and artist. Chico Sierra does not blatantly specify his cultural background, but many aspects of his work give clues as to who he is as an artist and how his culture has been impacted in the past and how it inspires him as an artist.
Continue reading Chico Sierra: The Good Sunby Megan White
Susannah Gray is an interior designer and artist from Bell, Florida, a small town in north central Florida. Growing up in a town where the white modern farmhouse look was everywhere, Susannah always felt the need to break away from that and create something different. Her biggest inspirations are from the Art Deco era and the Mid-Century modern era. Over time, she’s developed a style that mixes traditional details with bold elements. Her work blends traditional touches with modern, eclectic elements like intricate moldings, bold wallpaper, or sleek lines mixed with vintage eclectic style lighting. She credits her growth to seeing other students’ projects, completing her internship, and working through real-world design problems. Over time, she’s built a style that feels both thoughtful and full of personality, exactly like her. Her senior show features three works that reflect both sides of her creativity, her technical interior design skills, and fine art with a focus on human connection.
Continue reading Timeless Spaces & Human Touch: Susannah Gray’s Artistic Visionby Susannah Gray
In Chico Sierra’s exhibition on display at the Dedo-Maranville Fine Arts Gallery at Valdosta State University, we are able to experience thought-provoking art works which explore themes of culture, self-expression, indigenous identity, racial oppression and more. He experiments with several different materials and mediums, ranging from his 15’ mural Slow Collisions, to acrylic on canvas in several pieces, to acrylic paint on wood such as his work Blue Snake. The works are visually appealing enough to enjoy at face value, but the context of Sierra’s origins helps viewers in gaining a deeper understanding of the meaning or message each one contains. Sierra is a self-taught artist hailing from El Paso, Texas who is of Chicano heritage, meaning someone of Mexican heritage born in the United States. Anyone viewing this exhibition can benefit from learning more about the cultural conversation taking place within these artworks.
Continue reading How Chico Sierra Explores Cultural Identity Through ArtBy Amy Graham
McKenzie Simpson is from Quitman, Georgia and is a senior at Valdosta State University. Simpson’s work in “Spectrum,” the Valdosta State University’s spring 2024 senior show, focuses on the theme of home as well as bringing printmaking from the two-dimensional space into the three-dimensional world. She uses mixed media to incorporate screen printing into three-dimensional objects. She explains that the theme of home came to be after she was asked about her interior designs and why she created them. Prior to that conversation she thought the interior spaces were just an obsession with colors and rooms. However, that changed once she realized they were connected to her idealized version of home. She explained that home was not necessarily a place, but the people she cares about.
Continue reading McKenize Simpson and Her Idea of Homeby Chelsea Selph
On January 10th, 2023 an exhibition titled “Art Spoken” was opened to the public at Valdosta State University’s Dedo Maranville Gallery. The exhibit, curated by Mark Errol, aims to highlight underrepresented voices. The juror chosen was Olivia Richardson from Northern Virginia. Richardson is mainly a printmaker who focuses on creating artwork that explores her identity as a person of color. That fits right in with the theme of Art Spoken, so Richardson was a good choice for the juror of this show.
Continue reading Art Spoken Exhibition Reviewby Chelsea Selph
On April 7th, 2024 an exhibition titled “Spectrum” was opened to the public at Valdosta State University’s Dedo Maranville Gallery. This exhibition is being held to display the talents of Valdosta State University’s seniors in our art programs. The title “Spectrum” is to exhibit the multitude of art forms used by the students in this show, everything from ceramics to printmaking. Seven students from VSU showcased their talents in this exhibition, and now you get to be introduced to their works.
Continue reading Spectrum Exhibition ReviewBy: Desiree Rose Bailon
How far can someone speak out, especially about certain topics or implying certain ideas that would be seen as controversial or problematic? The Valdosta National of 2024 tries to implement the idea of allowing different artists to display their identity through their artworks. The artists presented were filtered and selected by the juror, Olivia Richardson, in collaboration with Mark T. Errol, the curator for Art Spoken. Art Spoken was designed to bring in in different artists of different races, ethnicities, and sexual orientation to light and into the spotlight to show who they are as people and show themselves through their work. The idea was solid, but the desired outcome was lacking. The effort was there, but it seemed too lackluster of what it means to show the artist’s identity and who they are to be recognized in honorable fashion.
Continue reading Art Spoken For Inclusivity and Diversity